Following the gradually matured techniques for portable electronic products and the reduced part and component cost thereof, various kinds of mobile products, such as cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), etc., have become very popular among consumers. Nowadays, consumers not only expect these mobile products to provide the so-called basic functions, but also more added functions. Therefore, personal mobile products that provide different added recreational video functions to allow a user to watch television, play movies, listen music, or even browse or edit web pages are most welcomed among consumers.
When a product with various added functions becomes a home or recreational electronic product, the original operations like moving cursor, clicking, or setting hot keys can no longer meet most consumers' expectation in having home or recreational products that can be very conveniently operated. Complicated operating procedures tend to largely reduce consumers' interest in using the products. On the other hand, products with simple, easy and intuitive operating procedures often attract and drive consumers to buy them. Some successful examples of such products include iPod™, iPhone™, etc.
Generally, a portable electronic product has a touch panel to serve as an input interface thereof. When a user moves or taps a finger or an object on the touch panel, usable options can be displayed for the user to click and enter a selected function. However, when the user uses an information or recreational interface that actually requires only very simple operating procedures, the actions of moving cursor and clicking would become relatively complicate to adversely affect the convenience in operation. For example, when a user wants to use MP3 or MP4 music and video playing functions on a walkman, the user would never wish to open a song menu by moving a finger to a specified position and clicking on a desired song. However, with the conventional portable electronic product using a touch panel as an input interface, when the user simply wants to jump to a next song, he or she still has to select the song through the menu.
In a currently frequently adopted way for using the portable electronic product with added information and recreational video functions, a user has to enter a specific mode using a specific gesture or one or more hot keys. For example, the user first uses multiple fingers to touch the touch panel to enter a video mode. After entering the video mode, the original cursor functions of the touch panel are temporarily disabled and replaced by various gesture operations effective in the video mode. For example, draw a circle clockwise would mean “FORWARD”, draw a circle counterclockwise would mean “BACKWARD”, and draw a cross would mean “STOP”. When it is desired to switch to another mode, such as return to the original cursor mode, the user has to make a gesture for exiting the video mode before he or she can enter the target mode, that is, the cursor mode. Through mode switching, the touch panel allows a user to execute different trigger events on a one-to-one basis in different modes with only a few gestures. However, the user has to troublesomely repeat the actions of entering and exiting a mode. And, for each additional mode, an additional gesture determining circuit and an additional one-to-one comparing circuit must be provided. By doing this, a lot of time is wasted in computing and a large space is needed for the complicated circuits, and the electronic device will consume more power and become inconvenient for use.
In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/700,636 entitled Gesturing with Multipoint Sensing Device, there is disclosed an electronic system having a position sensitive device B for performing special gesture functions. Please refer to FIG. 1. In the above-described electronic system, cursor functions and gesture functions are implemented in a position calculating module D1 and a gesture recognizing module D2, respectively. Therefore, the electronic system further requires a mode switching module D3 to enable a user to switch the functions between the position calculating module D1 and the gesture recognizing module D2. The user has to make a specific gesture, such as touches with multiple fingers, so as to enable the above-mentioned mode switching function. Then, the user has to make the specific gesture again to trigger and open a gesture set built in the gesture recognizing module D2. Thereafter, the user inputs one of a plurality of gestures preset in the gesture set in order to perform a corresponding gesture event. In the case the function to be performed is not included in the existing gesture set, the user has to exit the gesture set and makes the mode switching gesture again, and then follows the operating procedures for the gesture set in order to perform the desired function.
While the conventional gesture module can interrupt the original cursor input function and trigger specific events with various specific gestures, the user must first complete the mode switching each time to use different functions. That is, the user is not allowed to directly and quickly operate a desired function. Further, the number of modes and the gesture events in each of the modes are predetermined and could not be freely updated or modified with changes in the applied electronic product and the user interfaces thereof. Though it is possible to set the functions of the conventional gesture module in a software program of the applied electronic product to allow convenient update of gesture events, all the complicated circuit lines on the position sensitive device must be connected to the electronic product. This would cause difficulties in arranging the flat cable for the electronic product. Meanwhile, signal distortion and increased noise during signal transmission via circuit lines would also largely increase the difficulty in gesture recognition. Moreover, the electronic product has to undertake the calculation of gesture recognition as well as its own computation load; this will bring to divided computing and form a potential problem in gesture recognition.
If the main function of gesture recognition is allocated to and completed by the hardware of the touch panel, the gesture recognition ability and speed can be entirely ensured, and all the sensing signals thereof are subject to the least interference to maintain the whole position sensitive device at a high sensitivity without the need of providing additional connecting interface or other integrated circuit (IC) modules in the electronic product. And then, if the gesture recognizing results can be automatically combined in the electronic product to initiate an adequate trigger command, the electronic product under the currently used user interface shall be able to select whether to perform the function triggered by the combination. In this manner, a user can directly make a desired gesture on the touch panel without the need of switching to another operating mode. Therefore, it is not necessary for the user to remember various gestures for use in different operating modes or repeat the mode switching to enter or exit a mode.
It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop a touch-control module that has both cursor functions and gesture determining function to enable simplified circuitry and flat cable design, and the gesture determining results thereof can be diversified without being limited to the one-to-one correspondence to gesture events. In this manner, the touch-control module can be used with various customized electronic products and the applied user interfaces thereof, and the user does not need to remember different gestures for different operating modes or repeat mode switching to enter or exit different modes.